Did you know there are 35 million people like me in the US?
Not a giant market, but not one to completely ignore, especially when you add in all their relatives, friends, etc.
Yet that is what most advertisers do.
How do I know?
Because they don’t bother with captioning.
Congress requires video programming distributors (VPDs) – cable operators, broadcasters, satellite distributors and other multi-channel video programming distributors – to close caption their TV programs.
But not ads.
It’s not just that they don’t care about us (the hearing impaired), but it’s an active insult along the lines of hearing impaired = can’t/won’t purchase.
Think I’m exaggerating?
Women’s fashion couldn’t be bothered designing for curvy women, because if they cared how they looked they would lose weight/didn’t care about fashion/no money/ignorant/dumb, until it was the only market that offered growth — and the growth is enormous.
Even so, fashion doesn’t caption its ads, nor do automobiles, retail, financial, communications companies, sports equipment, food, the list is endless, although there are exceptions in every category.
The world today is one of nitch marketing and personalized mass consumer products.
The marketing folks are using customization/value-add/service/quality to sell to the individual and to capitalize on tiny segments of the market. The result is a surge in the ‘my way’ mentality of consumers, i.e., people.
OK, so what does all this have to do with your ability to do your job as a manager?
A lot, fortunately or not, depending on you and your MAP.
The mentality described above is the same mentality that you need to appeal to when hiring and with so few openings it’s more critical than ever to hire the right person at the right time and for the right reasons.
In spite of the economy and the abundance of candidates, to get the person you want you’ll need to sell—the job, your company, yourself, your team, corporate culture, everything—to candidates, just as they’re selling themselves to you.
You can make your staffing life easier by doing two things.
First, be sure to write a really complete req, not, as I’m fond of saying, a wreck.
Next, determine your position’s niche and identify the characteristics of that market. Here’s an example of what I mean; match the following programming jobs
upgrades
advanced development
maintenance
with the correct mentality
bleeding edge
tinkerer
improvement
Once this is done you can make sure that both the req and ad target the correct candidates, saving yourself time, energy, money, and nerves—not to mention looking like a hero.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
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